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By Bola Bolawole

The death, on Sunday, 26th March, 2023, of Gen. Oladipupo Diya, brought memories, fond or otherwise, flooding our memory, chief of which must be the coup, real or concocted, that Diya and other Generals were alleged to have been implicated in, on 21 December, 1997, aimed at toppling the vile dictator, Gen. Sani Abacha. In all, 26 civilians and soldiers were accused of treason, the majority of them Yoruba; they faced the death penalty if found guilty. Dragged before a kangaroo military tribunal and deemed guilty even before the trial had begun, six of the accused, including Diya, were handed the death sentence. The condemned persons however later got a reprieve as their death sentence was commuted to 25-year jail-term. With the death of Abacha on 8 June, 1998, Diya and the others were released by Abacha’s successor, Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar, on March 3, 1999.

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By Azu Ishiekwene

Sometimes it feels like we have been childhood friends. That we have known each other forever. For over 30 years since our paths crossed, I can’t remember how many times I’ve called him “Louis,” much less “Louis Osaretin Odion.”

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By Hassan Gimba

One of the factors that determined the just concluded elections in Nigeria is religion. Oh, agreed, in our politics, religion has always been a factor in determining winners and losers. But never before was it flagrantly flaunted and made to be the driving force than in 2023.

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By Jude Ogechi Eze

March 18, 2023 gubernatorial election in Enugu State will go down in history as the fiercest political contest since the creation of the State some three decades ago. Not even the famous 1979 governorship tussle between the defunct Nigeria People's Party (NPP)'s Chief Jim Nwobodo and defunct National Party of Nigeria (NPN)'s Chief Christian Onoh of old Anambra State could rival it. It came with a lot of intrigues, suspense, drama, misconstruction, propaganda and harsh realities, thanks to Peter Obi's unique innovative entrance into the national politics that birthed the OBI-dient movement and altered the usual colouration of electoral certainties across the strata. Not even former governor Chimaroke Nnamani could comprehend it, as he has been running rampage on Twitter (his newly found abode) trying to wrap his head around it.

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By Bolanle Bolawole

To all intents and purposes, elections have come and gone and the next thing now is governance. In between both, however, is composing the government. If square pegs are put in square holes, the government has a chance of succeeding but in the event that the contrary is the case, then, consider the government to have failed ab initio. The star prize of the last election was the presidency, which was carted away by Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu; so it is not a surprise that all eyes would be on him as to what colour or shape his government would take. Some have called for a government of national unity, meaning that members of his government should not be restricted to his political party alone or to those who voted for him in the election. Indeed, a unity government properly so-called should include professionals and technocrats who may not be politicians and who, indeed, may not have voted or shown any keen interest in partisan politics. Bringing on board opponents who stood against the president-elect in the election and or their supporters is also to be expected in a government of national unity. All manner of balancing will have to be done – regional, ethnic, religious, gender, age demography, name it. Power brokers and influencers, gods and cabals that must be pacified or unhinged are many of the permutations that must come into play in the formation of a unity government.

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By Valentine Obienyem

Considering the appalling tone of his offerings, one is inclined to wonder how many people read the surfeit of tweets from a past Governor of Enugu State, Sen. Chimaroke Nnamani! Employing adolescent English favoured by teen boys writing love letters to nubile girls they are wooing, Nnamani’s tweets were characterised by such banal words & expressions as “staccato”, “voluptuous masses of protoplasmic dribblers”, “hogwash gibberish trinity”, “a moving mass of hate, bile and vacuous bunkham”, “could not stand their kerfuffle”, “devious opium”, “trancelike orgy of tribalism and rabid religiosity”, among others. One can always detect in his continued tweets – glaring tissues of puerilities, iniquities, insults, imprecations - something akin to pompous rhetoric. There are so far, uncharacteristically, no lucid intervals in this madness. We miss in them a sense of orderly synthesis, and find merely a congeries of uncoordinated parts, lies, episodes, and personalities.

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